Travel Journal by Terri Rimmer - originally published by Associated Content, 2008

I left for Florida to see my sister Cindy for a week on March 29 and will be back on the 5th.

It's a tradition that I go see her around my birthday every year which is March 31.

As some of you know, one of my other sisters, Joy just found out she has breast cancer, Stage 1 and is getting an MRI tomorrow. She lives in Illinois.

Yesterday on the plane I was talking to a woman and was telling her about Joy when the woman revealed she had cancer, too. She has been living with lymphoma for two years with no symptoms. She had just felt some swollen lymph nodes on her neck so she went to the doctor. Turns out she lives in Hurst, about 30 minutes from me so I gave her my card and told her to keep in touch.

I asked her if it was tough to travel a lot like she does when she's sick.

"I'm not sick," she said. "I haven't had any problems."

She said her doctor was "the best" and was so great to her.

"He has a policy of when he delivers bad news to the patient he enters the room, makes eye contact with them, then opens their chart up and lays it out on the counter, placing his hands on it and standing there for a moment while he prays as to the right words to give the patient," Betty, the woman on the plane, explained. "He looks at the patient again and tells them his policy of delivering bad news."

Betty explained that when the doctor did this with her, she knew she had cancer.

"'I don't even have to tell you, do I?' he said to me," she told me. 'You already know, don't you'?"

"Yeah, I know," Betty told him.

"I know you do," the doctor said.

I had seen Betty in the airport sitting across from me as we were waiting on our plane though at that time we hadn't spoken yet. A teenage boy was sitting beside her and at some point she started talking on her cell phone.

When we boarded she wound up sitting right in front of me, having the whole row to herself which I did, too. Her grandson sat in front of her and he also had a row to himself.

A 6:30 a.m. flight is not popular!

We didn't even really start talking till toward the end of the flight. I couldn't help but get a little chill and marvel at the miracle that God had put before me in having this woman sitting right in front of me who has cancer when my sister is battling it, too.

When I got off the plane I shook my head and wondered at the odds of Betty, of all people being placed in my path at just the right time. I have had similar experiences before but it had been a long time.

Sometimes our Higher Power gives us just what we need at exactly the time we need it.

God Bless you, Betty.